Longhorn cattle ancestors came from Pakistan

New World breeds trace back to both major bovine lineages, genetic analysis shows

Texas longhorns trace their ancestry to the cattle that Christopher Columbus brought to the New World in 1493. Those first bovine immigrants were long thought to be descendants of taurine cattle, which are European cattle (Bos taurus) originally domesticated from wild aurochs in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago.

But a new study shows that longhorns and two other New World cattle breeds also carry a genetic legacy from indicine cattle (Bos indicus), an independently domesticated lineage from Pakistan.

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